


Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

by SapphyreLily



Series: Sunlight Through A Glass Window [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Gen, Kid Fic, mutant AU, superpower au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:34:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7506721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphyreLily/pseuds/SapphyreLily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oikawa Week Day 5 - Cold/Black (Power/Control)</p>
<p>He is a child. <i>A child.</i> Children shouldn't be this powerful. Children shouldn't be able to hurt people like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

Oikawa Tooru is three years old the first time he kills something.

It’s by accident, that’s for sure. His hand had grabbed a blade of grass when suddenly it turned brown and brittle, then black and crumbled away. His mother is the only one to see it at all, and she prays that it is just a trick of the light.

(It isn’t.)

It happens again when he is three-and-a-half, when he meets Iwaizumi Hajime for the first time. They are bumbling after bugs in the backyard when Tooru trips and falls. He stands up with no problems, but his mother can see the black marks on the ground, handprints perfectly burnt into the grass, handprints the exact shape and size of her son’s.

(She begins to worry.)

Oikawa Tooru is four years old when he falls into his mother’s lap, giggling and brandishing a bunch of daisies, when the flowers start to turn black in his hands.

She panics and looks around, but her husband is in the kitchen, and the Iwaizumis had already left for home. She breathes a sigh of relief.

Tooru looks up at her, his eyes confused, his mouth frowny. “I thought I got them this time. They kept doing that, but then it stopped, and now they’re gone again.” His beautiful, beautiful brown eyes well up with tears. “Why don’t the flowers like me, mama? Why don’t they ever want to come home with me so I can give them to you?”

She hugs him to her chest, but carefully makes sure that his hands are against her dress and not bare skin. “Maybe it’s the wrong kind of flower, darling. Have you tried picking others?”

He brightens up in an instant and hops off her lap, promising to bring back some _red_ flowers this time.

She watches him go, her heart aching, wondering how something so _bright_ could turn other things so _black_.

(She panics again when she sees the outline of two little hands in her dress, stained black and glowing orange at the edges.)

(She shivers when she thinks about her baby boy and his tiny, gorgeous hands, and how they can burn and suck away life with just a touch.)

(She doesn’t think about it anymore, for fear that her nightmares will come true.)

x.x.x.x.x

Oikawa Tooru is five years old when his mother makes him wear gloves.

They start off with wool, the small mittens that his grandmother knit for winter, slipped over his unblemished palms in the dimness of his room. She breathes a sigh when nothing happens, but then the wool loses its colour, shape and form, shrivelling up over his whole hand, but starting first at his palms. It is ash and wind within a minute, and they both watch the last flecks dance away out of his window.

“Mama?”

She hugs him close, making sure that his hands are tucked inwards, towards himself. (Not because she’s afraid, she tells herself, but because she has _seen_ , and she knows that he cannot harm himself.)

“It’s okay, darling. We’ll find a way to make sure that stops happening.”

(And she tries, oh she does. But every kind of material, organic _or_ synthetic, melts against his palms, crumbling to dust in seconds.)

(She reminds herself that it does not scare her, that it is perfectly fine if her son can disintegrate things with just a touch of his hands.)

(But she is scared. So scared of what will happen when they find out. When they find him, the child of destruction, and what they will do to him. Do _with_ him.)

(Because he is still a child, but he is too powerful to remain alive.)

x.x.x.x.x

Oikawa Tooru is six years old when he makes a mistake.

He manages to control his black hands on most days, and they only show up and burn things when he’s excited or scared or angry. He hasn’t touched a living being and turned it to ash since the last bunch of flowers he tried to gather for his mother, and though he’s certain that his control is good, he doesn’t dare to push his limits.

But when a bunch of boys pushes him around on the playground and shoves him into the bushes for _being such a whiny girl_ , he just wants to slap them across their faces to see how much black can spread before they cry for mercy. There’s a foot on his chest and he’s struggling to push himself up, hands on the ground because he doesn’t want to burn anything, because he’s still _good_ , he’s still a normal kid that sometimes causes weird things to happen.

There’s a shout, and the boys suddenly run away, and Tooru struggles to sit up and breathe. There’s a familiar brown hand in front of him now, and he follows the hand back up to its owner’s face. The smiling, slightly worried face of his best friend.

Hajime cocks his head. “Come on, Tooru. Let me help you up.”

And Tooru does. He puts his hand into Hajime's, lets himself be pulled upright. He doesn’t know that the grass where his hands were is completely burned away, that he’s still shaking with fear and anger, and he doesn’t know, _doesn’t know_ how **_dangerous_** he is.

It’s not until he is on his feet that Hajime lets out a shout, pulling away and cradling his hand to his chest. And Tooru sees then, the blackness spreading over his palm, feels the spread of elation and energy thrumming through him, spreading up from his hand.

And then he knows, he _knows_ , that he has made a mistake, he should never have let Hajime touch him ‘cause _what if he can never be healed?_

He chokes out an apology and runs.

( _Mama, Mama, you were right. I’m dangerous. I hurt people. I hurt Hajime. And I_ liked _it._ )

x.x.x.x.x

Oikawa Tooru is six years old when he runs away from home.

He never went home after hurting his best friend, never thought about the long term worries like food and water and lodging. He ducked into the forest and ran and ran, brushing aside the leaves and branches in his way until he was covered in flaky ash.

He only stops when his legs give out, when he trips over a thick tree root and _rolls_. His hands grip the grass as he dry-heaves, and then the grass turns powdery and he throws his head back and _screams_ , because wasn’t that the start of it all? That he couldn’t control his black hands?

He puts his hands on his knees instead, gripping the skin tightly as he gasps for breath, each lungful burning and stinging his sandpaper throat. He can’t even manage a whimper with how dry his throat is, can’t complain that he’s thirsty, not when he’s _parched._

He keels over in the grass, choking and gasping because his throat feels like a desert and he can’t see straight anymore. There are black dots in his vision, and he wonders if he’s finally succumbed to the destructive power of his own hands.

He faints away.

Tooru wakes in the same position that he fainted in, sprawled on his side and with nothing but ash on his fingertips. He can barely swallow, almost gags on the effort of moving his throat muscles.

And he hurts. He hurts everywhere, and he doesn’t want to move, he just wants his mother to pick him up and hug him, even though she never touched his hands.

His breath catches. His mother. Where is she? What is she doing? Did she send someone to look for him?  Does she know what happened? Did Hajime tell her? Oh no. _Did_ Hajime tell her?

He has to get home.

There’s a bit of daylight left, maybe an hour to sunset. He pushes himself off the ground and looks around, wondering which way is home. Then it hits him.

He is lost.

He wasn’t looking when he ran into the forest, wasn’t looking when he ran away. He has absolutely no idea where he is now, and so he can’t get home.

Tooru wants to cry, but his eyes are dry. There is no water left in him after his mad dash in the forest. He drops against a tree, hopelessness flooding him, sinking to his knees with his head in his hands.

At least, in the forest, he can’t hurt other people.

He lets two tears escape, one from each eye as he waits for death to come.

x.x.x.x.x

Oikawa Tooru is a lost six year old when the sky cracks open.

There’s a terrible _BOOM_ and the heavens open up, pouring out buckets and buckets of rain that splatter tree trunks and drip off leaves.

Tooru is woken by the thunder, feels the water splash onto him, falls to hands and knees to catch the drips. He knows he should wait, should wash the ash off before he drinks, but he’s so thirsty.

It’s too dark to see. He cups his hands and waits for the water to pool in them, tilting his head back to catch stray drops while he waits.

He brings his cupped hands to his mouth and drinks, uncaring about the taste of ash and dirt and _guilt_ lining his throat.

He brings his hands up for more, greedily wetting his throat, choking back every mouthful until it no longer tastes like ash.

Thirst sated, he gets on his trembling feet, stepping forward to where he hears the rain loudest. He stands there, head tilted back, arms outstretched, twisting round and round on muddy ground until he feels like he’s been soaked through, until the water has washed away his sin.

x.x.x.x.x

He fumbles along in the dark, feeling for a tree to lean against.

Now that he’s no longer dying, the rain and wind get to him, scraping against his fragile skin, tiny pinpricks stabbing holes in his face and hands and feet. His shoes are gone, so soggy and squishy that he thought he’d be better off without them. He regrets it now.

He wraps his arms around himself, palms cold and clammy against his goosebumped skin. His shoulder bumps into something, and the sharp, brittle feeling of bark digs into him. He twists until his back is to the trunk, slotting himself against the tree and sliding until he sits comfortably between its roots.

He is cold, so cold. The wind picks up around him, howling and wailing and screaming, and to the frightened six year old, it sounds like the terrified cry of his best friend when he touched him.

He can still hear him. Can still see the tanned flesh curl in on itself, black spreading like a drop of ink in water. Can see the look on his face, pain and horror and disbelief, that it is not a monster who maimed him, but _Tooru._

But it was true, wasn’t it?

_He was a monster._

The tears come easily now, harsh, wrecking sobs that shake his small frame. He can’t do it. He can’t control his black hands, can’t control the terrible power that steals energy and life from others that are not himself. He can’t control his actions, can’t control what he does so that people would leave him alone, and then he wouldn’t have to hurt anyone.

He thinks of his mother. His sweet, loving mother, who helped him, who tried to hide his burning hands from his father, to keep him safe from the ones who would take him away from home. His mother, who had this pained look in her eyes every time she touched him, every time she reached for his hands but never touched them. His mother, who would be so worried now that he has run away, and nobody knows where he went.

He sends up a choked prayer to whoever was listening, apologising for making his mother sad.

He thinks of his father, of how scary he is, of how he keeps shouting about _mutants_ and _powers_ and _they should all die_. He wonders what his father would think if he never came home. He wonders if his father suspects that he has powers too. He has seen his father’s suspicious face whenever he forgot to wash his hands cleanly, and the ash would still be under his fingernails.

He wonders if his father will send the bad men after him, now that he’s not come home.

The rain isn’t letting up. It’s only getting stronger, with horrible crashing thunder and sharp bolts of lightning. The cold is settled in his bones now, and he’s so frozen that he has stopped shivering. It’s almost warm now, in his muddy spot, with the wind buffeting his face, the rain lashing at his skin, and the soggy puddle that he’s floating in.

He’s so tired. Maybe he would take a nap for a while, and continue to find his way later.

He thinks of Hajime, his brave best friend, who’s always going out and catching bugs, climbing trees with ease. He remembers the time Hajime declared them best friends, when Tooru was getting bullied again because his picked flowers had disappeared (turned to ash) and he had jumped out at them and hit them all over until they ran away.

He hadn’t known Hajime could fly, but he said he couldn’t, because he didn’t have wings.

It made sense, at that time. Now, all alone, with no way of seeing his friend again, he wonders.

His eyes are fully shut now, and he dreams in short spurts, flashes of colour and imagery. He sees his mother panicking and running into the woods. He sees Hajime following her, jumping so fast and high it’s like he’s flying. He sees his father with narrowed eyes, picking up the phone and mouthing words into it.

He sees a flash of lightning, painting his vision red, and then blackness.

He breathes out, a white puff of mist, and sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> Notice the no character death tag. Make what you will of it. (Or like me, you can assume he died. That's my preferred angst ending.)


End file.
